WD Customer Loyalty Program

[Rajahal]

I just stumbled upon WD's Customer Loyalty Program.  Here's the crux of it:

 

I understand the warranty of my current drive(s)...will be voided in exchange for the discounted price for my new drive(s). Western Digital allows only one upgrade for each of your current products. By voiding the warranty of the current drive you do not have to send your current product back.

 

Basically, you voluntarily void the warranty on a drive you already own and then you get to purchase a new drive (with a full warranty, as far as I can tell...) at a discounted price.  Plus you get to keep your current drive.

 

Here's WD's page on it:

 

WD Customer Loyalty Program

 

You have to enter the serial number of one of your current drives in order to see your upgrade options.  You can just copy/paste it from your unRAID main page (just the end bit - everything after the final hyphen).

 

It seems like you could wait until the last month of your drive's warranty and then use this program to upgrade it to whatever the newest capacity is (3TB, 4TB, etc.).  It kind of seems like scamming WD, but it is completely within the boundaries of their program.  Seems a little too good to be true...  Granted, the 'discount' is off of the full retail price of the drive, so Newegg/Amazon/whatever sales prices might still be cheaper.  The current best deal available are recertified 3TB WD Green drives for $119 plus shipping and tax.  Not even as good as the current Amazon deal on 3TB Hitachi drives.

 

Has anyone actually used this program?  What are your thoughts on it?

[SSD]

As you point out, you are basically returning your disk and being allowed to purchase a disk at a discount that is not as good as you could get at an etailer.

 

Only reason to consider, IMO, is ability to buy a disk no longer available. E.g., if you wanted a 2T EADS you might actually get one in this way.

 

But no, never tried this myself.

[kingpin]

i looked at a couple of the drives on their site, but it seems that newegg has the same drive for cheaper. i don't really see the advantage here.

[opentoe]

I just stumbled upon WD's Customer Loyalty Program.  Here's the crux of it:

 

I understand the warranty of my current drive(s)...will be voided in exchange for the discounted price for my new drive(s). Western Digital allows only one upgrade for each of your current products. By voiding the warranty of the current drive you do not have to send your current product back.

 

Basically, you voluntarily void the warranty on a drive you already own and then you get to purchase a new drive (with a full warranty, as far as I can tell...) at a discounted price.  Plus you get to keep your current drive.

 

Here's WD's page on it:

 

WD Customer Loyalty Program

 

You have to enter the serial number of one of your current drives in order to see your upgrade options.  You can just copy/paste it from your unRAID main page (just the end bit - everything after the final hyphen).

 

It seems like you could wait until the last month of your drive's warranty and then use this program to upgrade it to whatever the newest capacity is (3TB, 4TB, etc.).  It kind of seems like scamming WD, but it is completely within the boundaries of their program.  Seems a little too good to be true...  Granted, the 'discount' is off of the full retail price of the drive, so Newegg/Amazon/whatever sales prices might still be cheaper.  The current best deal available are recertified 3TB WD Green drives for $119 plus shipping and tax.  Not even as good as the current Amazon deal on 3TB Hitachi drives.

 

Has anyone actually used this program?  What are your thoughts on it?

 

Yea, I've done this before. Quick and easy. Just need to supply Western Digital with the broken drive serial # and they can process it all online after that. Let's say my 100GB drive fails. I go through the process with WDC and they just happen to send me a 500GB drive because they didn't have any 100GB drives. Gotta love it when that happens.

 

 

[Rajahal]

As you point out, you are basically returning your disk...

 

The thing is, you don't need to return your drive.  The drive doesn't even have to have failed.  You just voluntarily void your warranty and by doing so get a discount on a new drive.